Walk with the 2017 Plein Air Poets to the sites that inspired their poems and listen to them read their words. This year's theme asked the poets in Editor, Susan Edwards Richmond's words, "to dig deeper, to go beyond surfaces, and draw, sometimes unbidden, wells of feeling from the landscape. For some, the farm granted welcome freedom, and, for others, the realization that,“I, I am still standing,” and that words may linger long after their creation.

The walk will take us around the pond, through the Medicine Wheel, to the Olympic Bell, and return through the Raspberry Patch on the way to the Orchard and Mediation Hut.

The event is free and there will be a reception following the walk. A chapbook of the 2017 collection of poems will be available for purchase for $12.

Thank you to the Acton-Boxborough, Groton, Harvard, and Littleton Cultural Councils for their continued support for the publication of the chapbook, and to the Stow Cultural Council, who gave us a first-time grant this year. All of these are local agencies, supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.

Join us as we welcome the artists and celebrate their work! We're excited to welcome the Boston based band, 'Old Wave' - Listen hear! It'a a great way to view sculpture as the music travels with you across the pond.

There is a $7 charge for admission for adults (unless your favorite artist has invited you.) Children under 10 are free.

This year's annual outdoor sculpture exhibit features the work of 28 New England artists. Follow a self-guided tour around the pond and through the woods to sculptures installed in the air, on the pond, in woods, fields, and forest. This year's exhibit features two interactive works — Lynn Horsky's Living Being Sculpture II and Anne Eder's, Tales From The Fells, OFPF Installation 2.0, a new prehistoric animal by Bob Shannahan, and the deeply sonorous Olympic Bell, by Paul Matisse.

The exhibit will be open on Fridays, Saturdays, and and Sundays from 11 -5pm. There is a $7 admission charge for adults and children under 10 are free. The walk will take approximately an hour to view all thirty-eight sculptures.

POSTPONED: Flourishing into Happiness: Answering the Call of Your Soul!

Happiness—what it is and how to achieve it--has been a subject of inquiry in most spiritual traditions for centuries. The Constitution protects the pursuit of happiness. But in this time of anger, divisiveness, and social inequality, is the pursuit of happiness selfish or is it helpful? How can we find greater happiness and remain fully engaged with the world?

In this integrative workshop, we will explore the overlap between Aristotle’s concepts of the good life, modern scientific understanding of happiness and how to achieve it, and the vision of happiness put forward by Yogi Bhajan, who brought kundalini yoga to the west. We will use the techniques of kundalini yoga and meditation to create an experience of embodied well-being, as well as intuitive to guide us towards making positive changes in our lives that will contribute to our flourishing! And in the end, we will find that understanding what happiness is for each of us is one of the best ways we can serve this troubled world.

Bring a journal, writing implement, yoga mat, sunscreen, and water. See you on the 23rd!

The instructor, William Lenderking, PhD., (Sach Prem) is a Yoga Alliance certified kundalini yoga teacher, a poet and musician. The class will be accessible to all! Beginners welcome!! This workshop is for all levels and no prior yoga or meditation experience is necessary. The fee for the afternoon is $25. You can reserve online here.

Join sculptor and orchardist, Linda Hoffman, for a spring tour of the farm including the apple orchard, espaliered apple trees, grafted trees, the hoop house, mediation hut, and sculpture by Hoffman and other artists installed around the pond. This event is part of Freedom's Way Hidden Treasures 2017. For more information about Hidden Treasures click here. The event is free.

Join us for an afternoon of grafting at Old Frog Pond Farm!

Learn various grafting techniques including whip and tongue, bridge grafting, and top working. You will go home with your own grafted semi-dwarf apple tree.

The fee is $30. The workshop will be taught by Linda Hoffman, Libby Levison, and Denis Wagner. Bring a small pocket knife if you have one. All other materials will be provided. In case of rain we'll graft indoors.

Take a guided tour of Old Frog Pond Farm & Studio’s Outdoor Sculpture Walk, Around the Pond and Through the Woods with artist and orchardist, Linda Hoffman and artist, Margot Stage. The tour will conclude with a visit inside Hoffman's sculpture studio.

This workshop is for anyone – professional painters as well as those who want to spend a delightful afternoon with paint and water! Our focus will be on capturing the form of the apple trees through the authentic gesture. We will paint from the body — from the heart; and give ourselves over to the unexpected drips of color, as well as intentional brushstrokes. The instructor, Imadiel Ariel, is a full time fine artist, painter and photographer, who was a gallery instructor for many years at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, taught classes at the Umbrella in Concord, and now teaches painting from her studio in Natick, MA. She can be reached at imadiel.art@gmail.com.

Workshop fee: $35; supplies if you need them: $20 payable to the instructor on the day of the workshop. Reserve early online at as this workshop is sure to fill.

Moussa Traore was born and raised in Mali and is considered one of the world's top djembe players. He is a dear friend of the farm and we are excited and honored to have him return for this much anticipated afternoon of family fun!

Old Frog Pond Farm & Studio's Poet-in-Residence, Susan Edwards Richmond, has once again invited poets to walk the rich landscape of pond, waterfall, fields, and woods of our farm and write poetry inspired by a particular location, artwork, or vista. This year's theme: SPLASH

We invite you to join us during the fall harvest to walk around the farm, stopping at the various locations of inspiration to listen to the poems. Chapbooks of the poetry will be available for sale. Refreshments will follow the reading.

In this class of kundalini yoga, we will work with the concepts of inspiration, revelation, and manifestation. Kundalini yoga is a yoga of energy and awareness, using asanas (postures), mudras (hand gestures), mantras (sound), drishti (eye focus), and body locks (bhands) in an integrated manner to allow the kundalini energy to rise from the lower centers in the body to the higher centers. Kundalini is often translated as ‘creative potential,’ and it is said that the kundalini energy lies coiled like a serpent at the base of the spine, but can be elevated through conscious practice.

The instructor, William Lenderking, PhD., (Sach Prem Singh) is a Yoga Alliance certified kundalini yoga teacher, a poet and musician. The class will be accessible to all! Beginners welcome!! Price is $15 and can be purchased through our website or paid directly to the instructor.

Old Frog Pond Farm is an inspirational place to explore creativity. We will gather in the Medicine Wheel. Bring mats, sunscreen, water, pen and paper. Bring a picnic, pick some raspberries, and stay for the Plein Air Poetry reading that starts at 2 PM.

Join us for "An Afternoon with Walt Whitman." The performance features samplings of Whitman's poetry and selections from archival interviews with the poet. You will go away with a much better understanding of the man and the poet!

Stephen Collins grew up in Cambridge, and received a BA in Literature from UMass Boston. After twenty plus years in a sales career, he is back doing what he truly loves - performing and teaching. Recently he has been teaching seminars on Whitman, Hardy, Shakespeare, Frost, and Contemporary Poetry at various locations throughout the country.

I certainly plan to take the student's advice and invite you back to Lenox next year. William J. Irvin, Ph.D., Lenox Memorial High School

I was simply blown away with your performance. A tour de force! Michael Robertson, English Department, College of New Jersey

This year's reception for the artists will be on Sunday, September 18, 2016 from 1 - 4pm. Visitors can meet the artists and enjoy a guided tour of the exhibition with Pamela Worden. Live music performed by The Morningside Studio Jazz Band led by Dan Fox.

Linda Hoffman will be on a panel of farmers from diverse spiritual traditions. More information soon.

NURTURING NATURE FOR FOOD QUALITY

The 5th Annual 2016 Soil & Nutrition Conference will gather farmers, researchers, nutritionists and food system advocates for a multidisciplinary conversation exploring the potential to improve food quality through regenerative agriculture that builds soil, crop and ecosystem health. We will explore how soil health and crop quality are interrelated, and how a renewed focus on the food qualities that industrial agriculture forgot – flavor and nutrition – can help drive transformation with important societal benefits.

Linda Hoffman will be presenting, A Natural Approach to the New England Apple Orchard, on Tuesday at 11:15.

Linda Hoffman will present a workshop, The Organic Raspberry Patch at 1:30pm

Prepare to be amazed by this delicate fruit that is actually an aggregate of up to 150 ovaries – and each one needs to be pollinated! Hoffman will discuss planting and growing your own patch of raspberries – varieties, diseases, and care including remineralizing the soil,foliar sprays, and the challenge of warding off the spotted-winged drosophila.

This year's opening reception will be on Sunday, September 20, 2015 from 1 - 5 pm. Visitors can meet the artists and enjoy a self-guided tour around the pond and through the woods. Live music performed by The Morningside Studio Jazz Band led by Dan Fox.

The Morningside Studio Jazz Band from the farmhouse porch!

The Sculpture Walk will be open on weekends from 11 - 5 throughout our U-Pick Season. Suggested Donation is $5. Click here for a "virtual tour" of this year's sculptures.

Old Frog Pond Farm & Studio's Poetry Editor Susan Edwards Richmond has once again invited poets to walk the rich landscape of pond, waterfall, stream, fields, and forests of our farm and write poetry inspired by a particular place. This year's theme: Contours.

Linda Fialkoff reading her poem at the 2014 Plein Air Poetry Walk

Susan has selected the work of thirteen poets and we invite you to join us during the fall harvest to gather and walk around the farm, stopping at the various locations of inspiration to listen to these poems. Chapbooks of the poetry will be available for sale.

William Lenderking reading his poem at the 2015 Plein Air Poetry Walk.

This program is supported in part by grants from the Acton-Boxborough, Groton, and Harvard Cultural Councils, local agencies supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.

Our native plants offer essential habitats for amazing wildlife and are an important component to our farming practices. Join us for a tour of our fields, orchards and trails and learn about identification, medicinal properties and uses of these beneficial plants in our landscape. Expect to see over 40 varieties, including Goldenseal and our first-year American Ginseng plants. You will take home a bibliography for native plant identification and our wild forage pesto recipe!

The plant walk will be led by Nicole Andrade, holistic and shamanic herbalist. The walk will last about 1 1/2 hours. You are encouraged to dress appropriately and bring water.

Spend the afternoon with Linda in the orchard, where over fifty varieties of apples are growing. She will discuss her yearly schedule of organic care, show how she has grafted a number of rows to change the inherited Red Delicious trees to new varieties, and share all things practical about planting, staking, and protecting young trees. We will also walk through the farm's newly planted Asian pear "nursery" and learn about growing this delicious fruit. More information available on the NOFA MASS website. Click here to register.

After reading Masanobu Fukuoka's One Straw Revolution, we have been itchin' to scythe! And then we met Shelby Howland of Howland Tools at the NOFA MASS Winter Conference. We are thrilled that he agreed to come out to the farm to show us how it's done.

Join us for one of two NOFA MASS-sponsored workshops on the farm this summer. With this one, facilitators Linda Hoffman and Charlotte Trim will talk about getting small fruit health by re-mineralizing the soil and using foliar sprays. They will also discuss the challenges of the Spotted Wing Drosphilia that arrived in the Northeast in 2011 and has been a challenge ever since for small fruit growers. More details available on the NOFA MASS website. Click here to register.

Folklorist Dillon Bustin has been touching hearts for decades with his earthly songs and stories that mingle nature, history and philosophy. Let his soul-soothing voice, his humor, his knowledge transcend you with stories of gardening, wildlife and other natural world occurrences.

Come early or stay later to enjoy our organic farm with U-pick raspberries and other seasonal offerings. We also have an outdoor sculpture walk featuring 15 New England artists.

Among other things, Dillon is the Artistic Director of Hibernian Hall, "Your Home for the Arts in the Heart of Boston". Hibernian Hall, located in Roxbury, MA, is a 1913 ballroom converted into a theater and cultural center. The year-round schedule features theater, music, dance, film/video, poetry and spoken-word performance art.

The tradition of 'plein air' became popular when the French Impressionist painters packed up their paints and drawing materials and headed for a day outdoors. Join painter Heather Barros for a morning of instruction. Experienced painters may bring their own materials. Beginning artists are welcome and there will be a $10 fee for pastels and paper. Feel free to bring a lunch and continue painting in the afternoon.

Spend the morning with poet and bird enthusiast, Susan Edwards Richmond. Susan will traverse the farm, pond trails and orchards in search of the usual ornitho-suspects, like blue birds, swallows, and red-winged blackbirds. There are always a few surprises along the way - like a green heron! Click here to register. $10.

Old Frog Pond Farm & Studio

Old Frog Pond Farm is one of the only a pick your own certified organic orchards in Massachusetts. Located in Harvard, MA, the farm is open for pick your own apples and raspberries late August to Columbus Day.